------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW --------------
Published by EH.NET (September 2008)

Stewart Davenport, _Friends of the Unrighteous Mammon: Northern 
Christians and Market Capitalism, 1815-1860_. Chicago: University of 
Chicago Press. 2008.  x + 269 pp. $45 (cloth), ISBN: 978-0-226-13706-3.

Reviewed for EH.NET by Donald E. Frey, Department of Economics, Wake 
Forest University.


Stewart Davenport describes how American Protestants in the period 
1815-60 related their faith to the economics that emerged in the U.S. 
North. American Protestantism, Davenport argues, did not fit well with 
political economy -- which had purely secular roots, held ?amoral 
priorities and prescriptions,? and ?led to conclusions that were 
inconsistent with Christian theology and morality? (p. 9). This reviewer 
agrees, and has stated the point slightly differently (see Frey 2002, 
pp. 218-20).

Given that both Protestant belief and economic doctrines are large 
bodies of thought, which provide plenty of leeway for interpretation, it 
is not surprising that Protestant moralists divided in their responses 
to political economy. The clerical economists sought to harmonize 
laissez-faire and their version of Christianity; this group of ministers 
adopted the utilitarian ethics of economics (which was unlike biblical 
ethics). The contrarians condemned political economy as thoroughly 
anti-Christian; this group held to the deontological 
(obligation-oriented) ethics of scripture. Finally, the pastoral 
moralists sought mainly to preserve the virtue of individual Christians 
living with the temptations of economic life; for this group, ethics was 
understood as building Christian character or virtue. Davenport infers 
the major ideas of each group from the writings of significant members. 
Because clerical laissez-faire came to dominate in the denominational 
colleges, and thereby proved very influential over time, this review 
will concentrate largely on Davenport?s analysis of this group.

The clerical economists, according to Davenport, were motivated by the 
chance to use political economy as a defense of Christianity against the 
threat of foreign radical ideas.  Their case relied on Scottish Common 
Sense philosophy and natural religion -- both of which were common 
intellectual fare in American Protestant thought of that era. Natural 
theology held ?that all of nature was the work of a benevolent creator? 
and so pointed to that kind of creator (p. 53). Political economy (as 
the clerical economists read it) discovered benevolent economic laws 
(e.g., such as the mutual gains from trade, which bound peoples together 
by commerce and so diminished warfare). This fortified belief in a 
creator who had designed such a harmonious system. To these academic 
ministers, ?Smith's economic system ... was harmonious and apparently 
good ..., both of which were attributes consistent with the tenets of 
natural theology? (p. 53). To reach this conclusion, clerical economists 
ignored both Adam Smith's religious skepticism, on one side, and the 
biblical portrayal of God, on the other.

Scottish Common Sense held that science must be compatible with revealed 
religion, for the God of nature and the God of scripture was one and the 
same. If economic laws were analogues to natural laws, then Christian 
morality and economic science could not possibly be in conflict. The 
clerical economists therefore defended the morality of economics by 
invoking ?political economy?s scientific authority? (p. 62). As 
Davenport sums up, ?if (economics) was a real science ... then it had to 
be in league with revealed religion? (67). The clerical economists used 
this to trump any religious arguments against apparently unchristian 
aspects of political economy and capitalism, thereby never having to 
deal with the actual critiques. Davenport renders great service in 
painting this larger intellectual context of clerical laissez-faire.

Davenport does not stop there, but delves deeper to show that the 
clerical economists? argument rested on weak foundations. These 
clergymen simply asserted that economics was a science, while failing to 
make a robust case that it really was. Further, the political economy 
they found supportive of natural theology consisted of selectively 
chosen propositions from Smith, stripped of the pessimistic doctrines of 
Malthus and Ricardo that didn?t fit their case so well. I believe that 
Davenport could have pushed his critique even further. For example, to 
make their case, the laissez-faire clergymen abandoned the Protestant 
understanding of science, namely empirical natural science. Their 
political economy was not empirical, but was a priori, speculative, and 
deductive -- the kind of intellectual system that Protestants typically 
had disliked; at most, their economic science evinced a very, very 
casual empiricism.

Of course, the clerical economists also had to reshape Christianity into 
something that could be supported by arguments taken from economics. 
Having done so, ?the clerical economists had reason to fear that [their 
picture of the] God of nature and creation would be different from the 
God of scripture and revelation? (p. 66). For example, the God of 
scripture is definitely not a utilitarian philosopher; yet, the clerical 
economists portrayed exactly this -- a social-utilitarian deity. 
Clerical economists knew utilitarianism did not pass the test of 
Calvinist orthodoxy, so obscured their utilitarianism with 
hair-splitting semantics and convoluted arguments. To use an example 
Davenport could have cited: a key member of the school, Francis Wayland, 
made much of his orthodoxy by rejecting William Paley's ?theological 
utilitarianism,? but effectively replaced it with an operational 
utilitarianism of his own, all the while obscuring the fact with 
elaborate arguments to support his religious orthodoxy (see Frey 2002, 
pp. 221-24).  In short, their utilitarian God created a good economic 
system leading to good consequences. When that ?good? system 
occasionally produced rather bad results (as in the crisis of 1837), the 
clerical economists remained silent. This immunity to facts paid off, 
for their influence lived on beyond the economic depression.

One not familiar with the theological-philosophical issues might wonder 
why utilitarianism was so foreign to Christianity. Charles Dickens 
pithily contrasted utilitarian and Christian morality in his novel of 
the era, _Hard Times_. He noted that Jesus? Good Samaritan must have 
been a very, very bad economist -- the obvious reason being that the 
Samaritan quickly aided the victim of robbers from his simple love of a 
neighbor in need, whereas a utilitarian in the Samaritan?s place would 
have stopped to make self-oriented cost-benefit calculations and so 
probably would not have rendered aid.

By siding with the economics of self-interest, the clerical economists 
lost the Christian capacity to critique economic excess (for the self 
finds it difficult to restrain itself, as any colonial-era Puritan could 
have told them). Indeed, says Davenport, ?the clerical economists said 
almost nothing about how and when [Christian virtues] were supposed to 
limit and restrain? excesses (p. 95). Wayland fit this description 
exactly: in a nod to the Christian doctrine of sin, he admitted that 
self-interested action could become evil; but he mainly suggested that 
self-interest generally was morally innocent. This being so, an economic 
system predicated on self-interest should be of no moral concern for 
Christians. Economic evils were chalked up to individual failures, but 
never counted as evidence of the inherent weakness of a system 
predicated on self-interest.

Davenport?s discussion is generally comprehensive, but I would recommend 
a small addition. He emphasizes that the clerical economists were more 
interested in the big picture (the economic system) than how individuals 
fit into that picture. This may well be so, from one perspective at 
least. Yet, the system of laissez-faire, in order to work, had to 
cultivate people who possessed a certain moral posture: specifically, 
individuals needed a strong sense of personal autonomy, both in defining 
their self-interest and acting on it. In the writings of Francis 
Wayland, the defense of personal autonomy was strong. He insisted on 
extreme versions of personal rights (such as absolute property rights); 
these would fortify personal autonomy and protect against the social 
restraints on individual freedom that come from moral obligations to 
others. This contrasts greatly with the Christian obligation to serve 
the weakest brethren, or with the biblical notion of stewardship in the 
use of possessions that are ultimately understood to be God?s property. 
As was typical of Wayland?s argumentation, he admitted in principle that 
Christians had moral obligations to others, but then he minimized such 
obligations, restricting them to a tiny corner of religious life. On the 
other hand, he waxed highly indignant against anything that might 
infringe the rights that fortified the autonomy of the individual and 
against ?oppression? by government. The system promoted by the clerical 
economists could work only by cultivating a certain personality type 
whose attitudes did not align well with much Christian teaching.

Personal morality was the main focus of the pastoral moralists. Of 
significance, as Davenport makes clear, is that this group ?agreed with 
the clerical economists about the overall goodness of the 
market-capitalist system? (p. 168). However, they worried about what 
involvement in that economic system could do to individual character -- 
strengthen or ruin it. In effect, the pastoral moralists, like Puritans 
before them, proposed walking an ethical tightrope: self-interest and 
business were morally legitimate, but could lead to moral ruin -- and 
temptation was always lurking at the door. Davenport sums up: 
self-interested competition ?was the motivating engine that drove the 
economy, but that also had to be restrained and subject to the 
boundaries of Christian morality? (p. 192). As noted, the pastoral 
moralists spoke of boundaries to keep behavior Christian. However, they 
were so thoroughly Protestant that they generally left it to the 
individual conscience to define the moral boundary: unfortunately, some 
consciences would not be very good ethical surveyors. Sometimes the 
pastoral moralists themselves stated more clear-cut boundaries, as in 
condemning outright deception or practices that injured others for one?s 
own benefit. However such standards set the bar low from a Christian 
perspective: even Wayland made a utilitarian argument against behavior 
that hurt others on the grounds that such behavior, if generalized, 
threatened the survival of a free economic system (libertarians do as 
much to this day). But the fundamental problem of the pastoral moralists 
was that they never questioned the system, or the ethical premises, that 
produced the behavior they warned against.	

Davenport describes and critiques the clerical economists, but it is 
important to note that he does the same for the other two schools of 
thought. He is generally even-handed and is sympathetic to the 
intellectual challenges all these moralists faced. Not one of the three 
schools, as Davenport describes them, had a perfect response to the new 
economic system that had burst on the scene; and each school of moral 
thought contained contradictions and loose ends.  Davenport suggests 
that the ambiguities of the biblical parable of the Unjust Steward point 
to an inherent difficulty in finding unambiguous responses to moral 
issues of economics.

Davenport?s study recognizes the significance of the interface between 
economics and the wider culture, in this case religion. Of course, the 
significance of this has been noticed before (e.g. Henry May?s 
_Protestant Churches and Industrial America_ or Liston Pope?s _Mill 
Hands and Preachers_). Davenport concentrates on the intellectual 
interaction between economics and religion rather than sociological and 
institutional boundaries. And he engages in a sustained analysis. This 
makes the book significant.

Davenport has uncovered and clarified the motives of, and arguments of, 
the people who worked to harmonize American Protestantism with 
laissez-faire economics. He also clarifies the work of two other groups; 
but here he stops. However, it is hard not to extrapolate beyond where 
Davenport leaves the reader. No doubt there were church people more than 
willing to accept the ideas of the clerical economists -- or who would 
have accepted laissez-faire practice even without moral support at all. 
However, without an intellectual structure that assured Protestants that 
there was harmony between their professed faith and laissez-faire, 
Protestants ultimately might have provided far less support for 
conservative, anti-reform sentiment than has been the case in the last 
century and a half since the clerical economists wrote. The overlap of 
Protestants with highly conservative economic ideas might have happened 
anyway; but it is helpful to understand that a group of moralists worked 
very hard to make it happen the way it did.

Reference:
Donald E. Frey. 2002. ?Francis Wayland's 1830s Textbooks: Evangelical 
Ethics and Political Economy.? _Journal of the History of Economic 
Thought_ (24: 2): 215-31.


Donald Frey?s book _America?s Economic Moralists: A History of Rival 
Ethics and Economics_ (SUNY Press) is forthcoming in 2009.

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